Has SQL somehow become less relevant?

I would argue quite the contrary. NoSQL DBs got through their hype cycle and are now a standard part of stacks, but SQL (especially via Postgres) has re-emerged as the golden standard for the bulk of data needs.

Especially when companies over-provision their databases. Partially because the jump from cheap-ass to mid-tier is a massive increase in capacity.

Then you can offload stuff to the DB engine (as it should be), making everything more efficient, less data going between DB and App layers is good for everyone.

Also you get to do cool SQL shit nobody understands and you become invaluable =)

Unless your role is DB-specific, at which point people stare at you blankly as you’re raging about B+trees and sort buffers, and then ignore you when you tell them for the Nth time that they should refactor their schema.

> Also you get to do cool SQL shit nobody understands and you become invaluable =)

Goddamn right!